The Missionary
by
Jack Wilder
Copyright © 2013 by Jack Wilder
All rights reserved.
Cover art copyright © 2013 by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations.
All rights reserved.
1
The stench woke her. A thick miasma of rot and garbage and death, laced with something acrid and almost sweet. The next thing she noticed was the heat. And then the pain. Everything hurt.
Something with too many legs skittered over her foot.
She couldn’t open her eyes; either that, or she was in a darkened room. Memory was a foggy thing at best. Thought was difficult, her brain sluggish.
She couldn’t summon the answers to those questions. The pain made it too hard to think. The pain, and the smell. And the heat. She tried to open her eyes again, and this time, she felt like she was successful. She was blinking, her lashes shuttering against her cheek. She turned her head, or tried to. Something went
Her fingers wiggled behind her back, pinned underneath her body. She tried to bring them around in front of her, but she couldn’t. She strained, pulled: pain sliced into her wrists. She was bound. Tied by sharp, thin wires of some kind. She scissored her legs, discovering that only her hands were bound. Blink again, strain against the darkness. Nothing. Was she blind?
She focused on her physical senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. She could see nothing, not even shadows within shadows. Smell…the stink around her was so clotted she could taste it. Touch? The surface beneath her was uneven and gritty. Dirt perhaps. There were sounds, now that she focused. The distant caw of a seagull, the faint, amorphous din of a city: horns honking, the rumbling of a diesel engine, voices speaking rapidly somewhere above her. She couldn’t understand what was being said, but one voice sounded angry.
Then there was a sixth sense. Or perhaps it was emotion, or memory.
Fear.
Not just the simple too-fast thumping of her heart and clenching of her stomach. No, this was deeper, powerful beyond comprehension. This was pure, unadulterated terror. She couldn’t summon the reason for the terror, but it was there, tainting everything. It was why she didn’t call out, ask for help. She was tied up in the darkness, in pain, and some instinct told her to stay quiet. Avoid attention.
She wasn’t sure who
Then, a flash of memory.
Her mind felt as thick as treacle, but she knew something had happened to her. She’d been kidnapped.
A surge of panic cut through her like a knife, giving her terrified clarity:
Wren. Her name was Wren.
She needed to speak, to say it, to remember. “My name…is…Wren.” Her voice was sandpapery and rough from disuse and thirst. “My name is Wren Morgan.”
A voice shouted from above, spitting out rapid-fire Filipino. Hinges creaked, and a square of light emerged over her head, illuminating a hard-packed dirt floor, concrete walls. Feet clomped on wooden stairs, dirty feet in green plastic flip-flops. The face from her memory appeared in front of her, smiling.
“Need more?” He held up a syringe filled with clear liquid. “Yes, I tink you need more.”
“No…” She tried to scramble away from him, but only managed to kick at the floor with her feet. “Please, no more.”
He laughed and crouched beside her. She drew deep and forced her body to roll over, nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her back. He was thin and wiry, but brutally strong. She struggled, knowing what was coming. Fear cleared her mind, and she suddenly remembered everything.
The mission trip. Manila. Getting lost. Doug and Aaron and Emily. Hands on her, cutting off her scream before it could erupt.
She fought and fought. But someone else came, held her right forearm in a vise grip, slid the needle into her vein. The plunger went down slowly, inevitably, flushing the euphoric high through her, making her heavy and weightless and warm, making her forget all over again.
The drug didn’t mask the pain when he kicked her in the ribs.
Green plastic-sandaled feet tromped up the stairs, and the square of light vanished, leaving Wren lost and alone in the darkness, beyond terrified but unable to remember what she was afraid of.
2
Stone Pressfield didn’t consider himself a musician. Not even close. He knew enough guitar to play simple chord progressions without screwing up, and he had a pretty decent singing voice—deep and smooth—but that was the best that could be said.